With three campuses, 160 telemedicine sites and Cooperative Extension offices in every Arizona county, the UA has a wide-ranging impact beyond its main campus in Tucson.

A new tool is now available that illustrates the UA's significant presence across the state.

The UA Impact Map, viewable at arizona.edu/impact-map, shows the UA’s statewide impact in a variety of areas. For example, it includes data on the number of UA students, alumni and employees in Arizona, as well as the number of degrees awarded throughout the state.

As the state's only land-grant institution, the University of Arizona has led outreach efforts through its Cooperative Extension offices across Arizona. Now the UA is assisting efforts to build a similar network south of the border.

The UA-led project, announced at Thursday's meeting of the Arizona Board of Regents, is called the Red de Extensión e Innovación Nacional Universitaria, also known as project REINU. The name translates to the National University Extension and Innovation Network.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender adolescents who come out at school have higher self-esteem and lower levels of depression as young adults, compared to LGBT youth who don't disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity at school, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researcher Stephen Russell.

Published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, it is the first-known study to document the benefits of being out during adolescence, despite the fact that teens may experience bullying when they openly identify as LGBT.

Even though the Mediterranean diet is traditionally seated in the sea region around the southern region of Europe, the northernmost tip of Africa and the Middle East, it can be adapted to arid lands — and research indicates an environmental benefit associated with adopting the diet.

During the fifth annual Research Frontiers in Nutritional Sciences Conference, recently held at the University of Arizona, researchers and practitioners shared current research about the Mediterranean diet and ways they are advocating for the preservation and broad-based incorporation of the eating pattern.

USA Today has compiled a list of the majors likely to have the highest earnings for 2015 graduates, and agricultural and natural resources comes in at number five. Their analysis uses a combination of census data and survey analysis from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

The big border barriers used to curb the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs from Mexico are having detrimental effects on wildlife, environmentalists say.

Advocates for a tighter border say security for Americans should trump consideration for animals.

The issue manifests itself in Cochise County, where the San Pedro River, which originates in Sonora, Mexico, and flows into Arizona, is a route for wildlife. It's one of the few spots for animals to cross from one country to the next, and the big fence on either side of it is a problem, a Sierra Club official said.

University of Arizona researchers and a group of partners have developed a tool that will help utility companies better understand the long-term impact of renewable energy on the power grid and provide insight on how to integrate these resources in the future in the most cost-efficient and reliable way for consumers.

The tool — a web portal — gathers, analyzes and displays real-time data from eight Southwestern utility companies, painting a broad picture of energy sources and use across the region. The information will help companies determine what actions to take for backup power planning over the next several years as the percentage of renewable energy usage grows.

Whether coping with physical ailments, contentious home lives or arduous semesters, we all have techniques to offset the hardships in our lives. But can we expand those methods and become better people in the process?

Through a generous gift from the Arizona Friends of Tibet, the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences is positioned to explore this question through the newly launched Center for Compassion Studies — the nation's first formalized collegiate center for compassion studies.

Beginning this month, the University of Arizona is hosting a series of events — a reception with celebrity chefs, an international conference, a workshop series and a study-abroad opportunity for students — to explore and share current research associated with the Mediterranean diet.

"We're showcasing the foods and helping people translate dietary recommendations to actual strategies — taking science to the plate — showing people what you can do, how to do it and where to find it," said Melanie Hingle, UA assistant professor of nutritional sciences and public health.

The University of Arizona is among 20 land-grant universities recognized with the 2014 Experiment Station Section Excellence in Multistate Research Award from the Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy.

Researchers participating in project W-2128, “Microirrigation for Sustainable Water Use,” were honored for their efforts at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities’ annual meeting in fall 2014. Muluneh Yitayew, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences accepted on behalf of the Arizona portion of the project.

The lobby of the 100-year-old Forbes building at the University of Arizona is set to become a hub of interactivity for students, advisors, career counselors, faculty and business partners of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

On Dec. 11 the college staged a demolition event that was webcast from the Forbes lobby for the 31 individuals and businesses around the state who donated $1.9 million for this project to “bring the building into the 21st century,” said Shane Burgess, CALS dean and vice president for Veterinary Sciences and Cooperative Extension.

The Mediterranean diet has seen growing global popularity as researchers find that the dietary pattern can help prevent or reduce obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer.

Responsive to that popularity, the University of Arizona Department of Nutritional Sciences is hosting a series of events meant to explore and share current research related to the dietary pattern, which focuses on fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and nuts, along with lesser amounts of lean fish, meats, dairy, olive oil and red wine.

The year 2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which created the national Cooperative Extension System, a unique partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the nation’s land-grant universities that extends research-based knowledge to youth and adults through a state-by-state network of extension educators.

The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, part of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, celebrated its centennial locally through a year-long series of commemorative events and activities during 2014. Each celebration highlighted Extension’s past while focusing on the application of UA Cooperative Extension’s educational programming into the future. The last two major events took place at the V Bar V Ranch in northern Arizona and at the Phoenix Zoo. In addition, an exhibit at the UA Science Library on the UA campus will continue until March 11, 2015.

This winter, 288 students from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will be walking in the 2014 UA CALS Winter Commencement, to be held in Centennial Hall on Saturday, December 20, 2014. Out of these 288 students, 233 are undergraduates and 55 are graduate students.

Even though the winter commencement has siginficantly fewer graduating students than its spring counterpart, this class is still widely diverse. The fall 2014 graduating class includes students in at least one of every major offered in the college, ranging from retailing and consumer sciences to agricultural education to microbiology.

The University of Arizona enjoys a reputation for having a beautiful campus paired with a great setting and ideal weather. At a time in the spring when much of the country is still covered in snow, students can stroll to class in flip-flops, under a grove of citrus trees in fragrant bloom. The fruit these trees produce goes largely unnoticed and unused.

While the primary function of these trees — almost 8,000 of them — is to provide beauty and shade, they serve an additional purpose: Many produce food in the form of fruit such as citrus, figs and pomegranates.

Among the most pressing issues facing the world today is how to grow enough food to feed a human population that will expand by more than two billion in the next 35 years without exhausting resources and destroying the environment.

Rice will play an essential role in the quest to solve this "9 Billion People Question." Rice is, and will continue to be, the primary source of food/calories for half the world and many rapidly growing regions.

The University of Arizona is home to innovative research and scientists committed to forging new paths to make sure that a crisis is averted and the situation is improved for future generations.